**Warning - this episode contains lots of tears** For the final episode of Pop Rocket, the panel convene to give listeners one last All About, one last Jam, and they look back at the past four and a half years, and all the various milestones they’ve shared with one another and their listeners while doing the show--marriages, deaths, birth, book deals, finding a new home, and so many other memories. It’s raw. It’s wonderful. In addition, we’ll hear phone calls from listeners and friends of the sh...
May 24, 2019•1 hr 14 min
**Angelenos: Tonight (May 17th) at 7pm Guy and Karen will have a conversation about Why Karen Carpenter Matters at Book Soup in West Hollywood.** In this penultimate episode, the Pop Rocket panel seeks guidance from The Oracle of LA, Amanda Yates Garcia. Each panelist pulls a card from the Oracle’s tarot deck, and gets an individual reading. What’s next for everyone? The answer’s in the cards. Also, Karen Tongson tells us about her phone call with Elizabeth Warren this week. Presidential candida...
May 17, 2019•1 hr 22 min
This is the first of our three final episodes, and we’re joined by screenwriter Guinevere Turner ( American Psycho , Go Fish ) whose latest film Charlie Says just came out today, May 10th. As “budding cult-ologist” MagWaps notes, “if you think you’ve heard everything on the Mansons, trust me, this movie takes a different view.” Having grown up in a cult , Guinevere was able to draw from her experiences and insight to tell the story from the point of view of the women who were targeted and groome...
May 10, 2019•1 hr 6 min
First off, you're welcome Game of Thrones fans. This is a super-sized Pop Rocket loaded with theories, speculation, and yes, even love. While Wynter and Karen were away, Margaret and Guy tapped two die-hard fans for a full-on discussion of the series and their thoughts now that the first two of the last six episodes have aired. Assembled in the studio this week: Guy "I've read all the George R.R. Martin books in the series" Branum Sarah "I'm in a viewing group with a gaggle of lesbians and their...
Apr 26, 2019•1 hr 10 min
This week Wynter and Karen chat with Ellington Wells, a comedian and writer on Comedy Central’s brand new sketch show The New Negroes with Open Mike Eagle and Baron Vaughn. The panel takes a look at how black sketch comedy has involved and Wells tell us what Robert Townsend TV special inspired Vaughn to create a show with a similar sensibility. All Abouts Wynter: No Good Nick Karen: Season 4 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Ellington: Britney's Gram podcast special episode That's My Jam Ellington: Ava Max...
Apr 20, 2019•53 min
**ANNOUNCEMENT: The nomination process is now open for the next Pop Rocket Seal of Approval. This quarter we’re looking for veterans with a large body of work who have been underappreciated and haven’t received the acclaim that their body of work and stellar character deserve. If you want to submit a name, you must call and leave a message on Guy’s mom’s voicemail to tell us who you’d like to nominate and why. That number is: 530-237-4108** This week we’re joined by food writer Tien Nguyen whose...
Apr 12, 2019•1 hr 2 min
Take a trip down memory lane with Wynter, Karen and Margaret as they revisit 1991 in music. If you’ve ever been curious what song was playing when Karen experienced her first same sex kiss, tune in. If you grew up in the nineties, this episode will bring you back to that moment in time. If you spent your formative years in the aughts, and want to experience the 90s vicariously through Pop Rocket, the panel goes into great detail about what makes 1991 such a pivotal epoch, giving us grunge, new j...
Apr 05, 2019•59 min
Pop Rocket’s come early this week! Alonso Duralde guest hosts for this, our second week of the MaxFunDrive. The deadline for supporting this show is fast upon us, so if you haven’t yet become a new or upgrading member, do it now! Go to our donation page . You can donate while listening to this special Thursday edition of the show. This episode has something for everyone--sapphic sisters, metal heads, Hallmark Channel enthusiasts and, of course, horror buffs. One note of caution: There are spoile...
Mar 28, 2019•1 hr 10 min
It’s the first live episode of Pop Rocket. Professor Karen Tongson invited the panel to give a lesson on why pop culture matters, with a focus on the past decade. You’ll learn what pop culture of the 2010s will last, and what culture won’t be remembered. Plus we’ll hear from some of Karen’s students, including a special jam brought to the show by Clayton. You won’t want to miss this must-listen episode! All Abouts Margaret: Out for Blood Karen: Shrill Wynter: The Fox-Disney merger That's My Jam ...
Mar 23, 2019•1 hr 9 min
In honor of Women’s History Month, the panel lives vicariously through women who sought revenge, from Lorena Gallo (formerly Bobbit), to Thelma & Louise. They touch on their favorite films centered around women seeking revenge...or, perhaps more accurately, justice. All Abouts Margaret: Uncover: Escaping NXIVM Karen: “Operation Varsity Blues”, aka the college admissions scandal Wynter: Free Solo Guy: Zumbo’s Just Desserts That's My Jam Margaret: Pistol Annies - Got My Name Changed Back Guy: ...
Mar 16, 2019•57 min
When she was 17, Dame Angela Lansbury quit her job at a department store to take a part in a movie, as 17-year-olds are wont to do. She played a young maid to Ingrid Bergman’s character in Gaslight, a film that garnered seven Oscar nominations and two wins, including one for Best Actress for Bergman. It’s the typical tale of a young actress trying to make it big and having to struggle, role after role after role after role, to hold her own on screen with the most celebrated actors in the world, ...
Mar 09, 2019•1 hr 5 min
Matt Rogers joins us to help tidy up the Oscars. The 91-year-old institution has gotten a bit cluttered, so the Pop Rocket panel applies the KonMari Method to the Academy Awards. We’ll keep everything that sparks joy, and the rest will be dropped off at an Out of the Closet in a Hefty bag. Will the short film and animated short categories survive? What about song and dance numbers? Find out. Let us know if you agree with the panel, or take issue by sharing your thoughts in the comments section b...
Mar 02, 2019•1 hr 3 min
We’ve got a SCREAMINGLY great episode this week as the wonderful Tananarive Due joins us in studio for a deep cinematic dive into the world of black horror. Tananarive Due is the UCLA lecturer whose class on Get Out--The Sunken Place-- was crashed by non-student Jordan Peele . She is also the executive producer of Shudder’s very first original documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. The panel cover A LOT of ground. For horror buffs and cinephiles alike, this episode is a MUST-LISTEN...
Feb 23, 2019•1 hr 5 min
Are you ready for the 64th most electrifying show in Hollywood? Well get ready because it’s here, in your podcatcher: The Fifth Annual Pop Tart Awards! The panel comes together to recognize the best of the best in TV, film and everything else entertaining. What will take home the Warm Blanket Award for fuzzy comfort entertainment? Who delivered the best performance of the year? Could the panelists find consensus on the best album of the year? Barely. Plus, a bona fide celebrity makes a cameo tha...
Feb 16, 2019•1 hr 7 min
On this week’s show, the panel play catch up. Each panelist was assigned to watch one film from this past year they missed when it was still in theaters. At the behest of Guy, Margaret watched Can You Ever Forgive Me . Karen Tongson was assigned Roma , but decided she wanted to check out Support the Girls, so Wynter was tapped for Roma instead. Lastly, both Wynter and Karen wanted to talk to Guy about A Simple Favor. Each panelist reported back. Who thought Roma was too slow? Did Margaret show e...
Feb 09, 2019•1 hr 4 min
Will Terry Crews receive the second-ever Pop Rocket Seal of Approval? Why wasn't Margaret on this week's show? Is Adam McKay a craftsman or an artist? These questions and more will be answered on this week's Pop Rocket! Plus, in the wake of the PRSOA "Bloom backlash", the voting process has been amended. Tune in to find out how, and when there will be another nomination period. That's My Jam Wynter: Summer Walker - Girls Need Love Karen: James Ingram - Just Once Guy: RuPaul (feat. Myah Marie) - ...
Feb 02, 2019•59 min
This week's show is a double dose of schadenfreude! The gang compares the dueling documentaries Hulu's "Fyre Fraud" and Netflix's "Fyre," which tell different versions of the tropical shit show that landed its mastermind Billy McFarland behind bars. All Abouts Wynter is all about Crashing and True Detective . Margaret is all about the memoir Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning by Claire Dederer, who you may recognize from her article in the Paris Review What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous ...
Jan 26, 2019•1 hr 1 min
Once again we’re firing on all cylinders this week! It’s an ultra-packed show covering everything from The Masked Singer , Surviving R. Kelly , MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A. and the need to move beyond moralistic posturing in critiquing comedy. The panel get into a lively discussion of Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up on Netflix show. One panelist loves it, one panelist thinks it’s “sinister”, and a panelist named Guy is so obsessed with one of the families featured on the show he couldn’t stop talking about ...
Jan 19, 2019•1 hr 5 min
The ENTIRE PANEL is back together for a jam-packed episode! They talk Golden Globes, Bandersnatch and react to some of the commercial jingles you beautiful listeners sang to us on the Pop Rocket voicemail line. All Abouts Wynter, fresh off a romantic holiday trip to Paris, is all about the Louis Vuitton Foundation's Basquiat exhibition Guy is all about Can You Ever Forgive Me Margaret is all about Regina King's Golden Globes speech Karen thinks everyone should check out the new Aussie show Insta...
Jan 12, 2019•1 hr 2 min
Guy Branum is back for our first episode of 2019! Sadly, Margaret couldn’t join us because #health and Wynter was busy being a jet setter. This week, the panelists share their pop culture resolutions for 2019, and own up to resolution fails from the past year. Writer and comedian Tara Jepsen joins us in studio and Guy is awed by the combined power of her and Karen’s “lesbian efficiency.” If you're curious about what Guy has been up to these past couple months, he catches us up. Spoiler alert (th...
Jan 04, 2019•1 hr 7 min
Happy Holidays, everyone! Wynter and Karen are joined by special guest panelists Tre’Vell Anderson (Director of Culture and Entertainment at Out Magazine ) and 'Who Shot Ya?'s' Alonso Duralde to create the ultimate holiday playlist. Each panelist created a top ten list of their favorite holiday songs, out of which they’d select twenty for inclusion in the official Pop Rocket Holiday Playlist . Well, that was the plan, anyway. In practice, when faced with making the tough choices, they flopped. W...
Dec 22, 2018•55 min
How right, but mostly how wrong, does Hollywood get it when it comes to capturing artists in film? Margaret Wappler asks these very questions of her esteemed panel. And this, the panel is comprised of LA Times staff writer Carolina Miranda , who covers visual arts, culture and architecture, media scholar and TV critic Sarah Kessler --filling in for her under-the-weather wife Karen Tongson--and Cal Arts professor and visual artist David P Earle , who is better known to Pop Rocket listeners as fat...
Dec 14, 2018•56 min
Guests: Karen Tongson Wynter Mitchell-Rohrbaugh Sarah Kessler We're getting down into the down and dirty story Dirty John , the new Bravo show based on the LA Times and Wondery podcast of the same name. Joining us in the discussion this week is media scholar and TV critic Sarah Kessler who happens to also be married to our very own Karen Tongson. Dirty John is the true crime story about Debra Newell, a successful Orange County businesswoman who seemed to have everything going for her except when...
Dec 08, 2018•1 hr 15 min
It's well known in the Rocketeer community that our host this week, Wynter Mitchell-Ragnarok, is a huge horror buff. She watches two to three a week, and she is running out of horror flicks to watch on all the streaming services. Send her your recommendations! In the meantime, Wynter forced Karen, Margaret and Who Shot Ya?’s Ricky Carmona to subject themselves to some of her favorite movies from the holiday genre, such as Black Christmas , Silent Night, Deadly Night , and their sequels. Our spec...
Nov 30, 2018•1 hr 1 min
Happy Thanksgiving, Rocketeers! We at Pop Rocket are thankful for you, our listeners. For the purposes of this episode, Wynter will be playing the role of Margaret’s sister who always criticizes her stuffing recipe, while Karen is the gay aunt who sold Wappler a bunk Subaru. There was a lot of tension in the studio, and everyone was walking on eggshells. Will our panelists be able to make it through a discussion of awkward family gatherings without bursting into tears? Will Wynter be triggered b...
Nov 22, 2018•54 min
This week Pop Rocket celebrates its 200th episode!!! To commemorate this auspicious occasion, Karen, Margaret and Wynter take a look at how each of them has evolved from the quaint, carefree days of 2015 to the unrelenting hellscape that is 2018. Remember the blue dress? Sorry, remember the white dress? They'll reminisce about that fun moment in pop culture, talk Taylor Swift then and now, and how much things have changed in terms of trans visibility from back in 2015 when Caitlyn Jenner sat dow...
Nov 17, 2018•1 hr 3 min
Kanye West’s rambling, pro-Trump speech on SNL late September may have surprised casual observers, but by that point, his fans had heard both his outrageous statements and his frank talk about mental health for months. Charlagmane tha God lamented his canceled TimesTalk with Kanye on Instagram as a missed opportunity, writing, "Normalizing being mentally healthy is a conversation that I really wanted to have with Kanye because he's been so vocal about his own mental health struggles. Unfortunate...
Nov 10, 2018•1 hr 7 min
The Pop Rocket Seal of Approval Before registered parliamentarian Guy Branum takes an extended leave for some much-needed relaxation at home and abroad, the panelists came together to consider, once again, whether they would be able to award the first-ever Pop Rocket Seal of Approval. Without an acting Nominating Committee Head to sift through listener suggestions on Facebook and Twitter, this time the panel decided to consider the names of only the most committed Pop Rocket listeners--those who...
Nov 02, 2018•1 hr 4 min
**Note: Next week the panel will cast their votes to award--or not--The Pop Rocket Seal of Approval. You still have an opportunity to influence the panelists. If you want your voice to be heard, literally, call the Pop Rocket hotline and make a case for the person you want to win, and why. Call: (530) 237-4108** Jamie Lee Curtis is smashing box office records, and the Pop Rocket panel APPROVES. In this episode, Guy, Wynter, Karen, and Margaret share their favorite scares, from new shows like The...
Oct 27, 2018•56 min
It’s 1969. Four guests check into the El Royale Hotel: a priest (Jeff Bridges), a vacuum salesman (Jon Hamm), a singer (Cynthia Erivo), and a hippie (Dakota Johnson). They all - save one - have something mysterious going on behind the scenes and the hotel itself is not what it appears to be. When they check in, there’s a storm a-brewin'. Join Guy, Karen, Margaret, and producer/film festival programmer/ Who Shot Ya contributor and now Pop Rocket guest Drea Clark as they pick apart Drew Goddard’s ...
Oct 19, 2018•51 min
